Tag: impact assessment

Studies on the impact assessment of subsidy schemes on farm performance indicators show contradictory results. Some studies indicate improvements in farm efficiency, while others highlight distortions and negative externalities. This paper analyses the impact of budgetary support provided to dairy farms in Albania based on a structured farm survey. The impact is assessed using causal forest, an adaptation of Breiman’s random forest algorithm for treatment effect estimation. Results suggest that subsidies positively impact the number of milking cows, output (quantity of milk sold), and revenues but have no impact on employment, yields, investment, or future investment plans. The study suggests that public support to dairy farmers should be conditioned on technology improvement measures and CAP-like cross-compliance obligations.

This study analyses the impact of government subsidy schemes on farm production capacity, technical efficiency and use of idle production factors (land and labour) in the olive and vineyard sectors of Albanian agriculture. The paper uses a quasi-experimental design by applying a propensity score matching method based on a structured survey conducted in 2013. The results show that the government subsidy scheme had a net positive impact on areas planted with olives and grapevines, and on part-time on-farm employment. On the other hand, no significant net impact was observed regarding farm size and crop yields. This is the first time that such an in-depth impact assessment of government subsidies in the agriculture sector has been carried out in Albania, thus the results will be useful both for scientists and policy makers in agriculture and rural development.